N-P girls close the gap against top-notch teams

There are times, Nashua-Plainfield girls basketball coach Josh Smith concedes, that he wouldn’t mind playing in anything other than the Top of Iowa Conference East Division.

It is, in a word, loaded, and the result last week was two more losses for the Huskies.

“On one hand having a bunch of wins right now would be nice which I think we could do if our situation was a little bit different,” Smith said. “When we played Clarksville it was a 4-point game going into the fourth quarter. We had some things that didn’t go our way, and didn’t pull out the win, but Clarksville is sitting at 15-3 right now and we were right in that game.”

Yet …

“We’re trying to build a successful program and more importantly successful people. I think playing in this conference holds us to a high level of accountability because there’s never an off night.”

And although neither game was close last week — the Huskies fell by 33 to Mason City Newman and 27 to Central Springs — Nashua-Plainfield, which is now 2-14, showed it’s cutting the gap. In its first game against Newman, Nashua-Plainfield lost by 54 and in its first game against the Panthers the margin was 42.